AI Insights
Cloudflare

Cloudforce One REACT Principal Consultant

Cloudflare · San Francisco, California, US
full-timemid (2-5 yrs)Posted 174d ago
Security EngineeringIC3ICFully Remote
StackPythonGolangYARAZeek/BroSuricataAWSAzureGCPO365CloudflareWindowsLinuxmacOSTCP/IPHTTPSFTPSFTPSSHRDPSMB/CIFSNFSMITRE ATT&CKNIST CSFDigital ForensicsIncident ResponseMalware AnalysisReverse EngineeringStatic AnalysisDynamic AnalysisIOC Analysis

Summary

A remote-first Principal Incident Response Consultant role on Cloudflare's elite threat operations team (Cloudforce One), focused on responding to customer security incidents across on-premises and cloud environments, conducting digital forensics, and tracking sophisticated threat actors including APTs.

About the role

About Us

At Cloudflare, we are on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers millions of websites and other Internet properties for customers ranging from individual bloggers to SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare all have web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures list and ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company. 

At Cloudflare, we’re not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; we’re looking for the builders who see the cracks in the Internet that everyone else has simply learned to live with. We value candidates who have the instinct to spot a "normalized" problem and the AI-native curiosity to create a solution using the latest tools. Our culture is built on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster today to make it better tomorrow, while ensuring that every improvement, no matter how small, is shared across the team to lift everyone up. If you’re the type of person who values curiosity over bureaucracy, and that AI is a partner in solving tough problems to keep the Internet moving forward, you’ll fit right in.

Available Locations: Remote

About the Team

Cloudforce One is Cloudflare’s threat operations and research team, responsible for identifying and disrupting cyber threats ranging from sophisticated cyber criminal activity to nation-state advanced persistent threats (APTs).  Cloudforce One works in close partnership with external organizations and internal Cloudflare teams, continuously developing operational tradecraft and expanding ever-growing sources of threat intelligence to enable expedited threat hunting and remediation.  Members of Cloudforce One are at the helm of using a vast and varied set of data points that only one of the world’s largest global networks can provide.  The team is able to efficiently analyze these unique data points at scale, and synthesize findings into actionable threat intelligence to protect our customers.

About the Role

Cloudflare is a system spanning the globe, on a mission to make the internet safer and more powerful everyday.  To help fulfill this mission, we are seeking a talented Senior Manager, Incident Response to join us in growing our Cloudforce One organization, where you will be instrumental in building a proactive and threat intelligence-driven approach to protecting Cloudflare and its customers from sophisticated and evolving threat actors. This position requires an innovative, self-starting, and detail-oriented problem solver with a passion for analyzing, tracking, and triaging the malicious software used by cyber threat actors.

As a REACT Consultant, you will respond to customer security incidents in on-premises and cloud environments.  You will detect and disrupt cyber threat activity across customer networks and cloud environments.  You will engage with customers at all levels including Executive, VP, Director, and managerial levels. You will serve an integral role in the discovery and analysis of cyber threat intrusions, working alongside forensic analysts, threat researchers, detection engineers, and malware analysts to detect and mitigate malicious activity. The findings you uncover will help identify Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) of ongoing threat activity to protect your customer and the greater Cloudflare customer base.

Our ideal candidate will have 1-2 years of previous experience in cybersecurity with at least 1+ years in Digital Forensics or Incident Response. Candidates will have experience with hands-on forensic analysis in a Windows, Mac, and Linux environment.  Ideally, this candidate will have experience triaging malware using static or dynamic analysis on Windows, macOS, or UNIX-based platforms.  You will be responsible correlating threat actor activity across the customers environment. Outstanding candidates will posses excellent verbal and written communication skills.  You will also has experience with incident response reports and reliably be able to write simple scripts in Python or Golang.

Examples of desirable skills, knowledge and experience

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Cybersecurity, related technical field, or equivalent training/practical experience
  •  
  • 3+ years of previous experience in cyber security
  • 2+ years of Incident Response experience
  • 1+ years of customer-facing role
  • Incident Response: experience conducting or managing incident response investigations for organizations, investigating targeted threats such as the Advanced Persistent Threat, Organized Crime, and Hacktivists

  • Computer Forensic Analysis: a background using a variety of forensic analysis tools in incident response investigations to determine the extent and scope of compromise

  • Network Forensic Analysis: strong knowledge of network protocols, network analysis tools like Bro/Zeek or Suricata, and ability to perform analysis of associated network logs

  • Reverse Engineering: ability to understand the capabilities of static and dynamic malware analysis

  • Incident Remediation: strong understanding of targeted attacks and able to create customized tactical and strategic remediation plans for compromised organizations

  • Network Operations and Architecture/Engineering: strong understanding of secure network architecture and strong background in performing network operations

  • Cloud Incident Response: knowledge in any of the following areas: AWS, Azure, GCP incident response methodologies

  • Communications: strong ability to communicate executive and/or detailed level findings to clients; ability to effectively communicate tasks, guidance, and methodology with internal teams

  • Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to establish and maintain strong working relationships with business groups
  • Technical knowledge of common network protocols and design patterns including TCP/IP, HTTPS, FTP, SFTP, SSH, RDP, CIFS/SMB, NFS
  • Familiarity with various cloud environments (AWS, Azure, O365, Google, Cloudflare)
  • Understanding of MITRE ATT&CK and NIST Cyber Security Frameworks standards and requirements
  • In-depth understanding of Windows operating systems and general knowledge of Unix, Linux, and Mac operating systems

Bonus Points

  • Proficient in Python or Golang, capable of writing modular code that can be installed on a remote system
  • Proficient with Yara and writing rules to detect similar malware samples
  • Understanding of source code, hex, binary, regular expression, data correlation, and analysis such as network flow and system logs
  • Practical malware analysis experience with static, dynamic, and automated malware analysis techniques
  • Possess mid-level experience as a Malware Analyst able to reverse engineer various file formats and analyze complex malware samples
  • Reverse engineering experience with APT malware with an understanding of common infection vectors
  • Knowledgeable of current malware techniques to evade detection and obstruct analysis
  • Experience writing malware reports on unique and interesting aspects of malware
  • Experience with malware attribution
  • Experience with tracking and identifying threats through Indicator of Compromise (IOCs) pivoting and infrastructure enumeration 
  • Familiarity with bash command line executables to conduct static analysis and investigate IOCs

Travel requirements

  • Ability to travel up to 20% of the time
  • Position may require foreign and domestic travel, passport will be required

What Makes Cloudflare Special?

We’re not just a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company. We’re a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company with a soul. Fundamental to our mission to help build a better Internet is protecting the free and open Internet.

Project Galileo: Since 2014, we've equipped more than 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries with powerful tools to defend themselves against attacks that would otherwise censor their work, technology already used by Cloudflare’s enterprise customers--at no cost.

Athenian Project: In 2017, we created the Athenian Project to ensure that state and local governments have the highest level of protection and reliability for free, so that their constituents have access to election information and voter registration. Since the project, we've provided services to more than 425 local government election websites in 33 states.

1.1.1.1: We released 1.1.1.1 to help fix the foundation of the Internet by building a faster, more secure and privacy-centric public DNS resolver. This is available publicly for everyone to use - it is the first consumer-focused service Cloudflare has ever released. Here’s the deal - we don’t store client IP addresses never, ever. We will continue to abide by our privacy commitment and ensure that no user data is sold to advertisers or used to target consumers.

Sound like something you’d like to be a part of? We’d love to hear from you!

This position may require access to information protected under U.S. export control laws, including the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. Please note that any offer of employment may be conditioned on your authorization to receive software or technology controlled under these U.S. export laws without sponsorship for an export license.

Cloudflare is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.  We are committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people and place great value in both diversity and inclusiveness.  All qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to their, or any other person's, perceived or actual race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, or any other basis protected by law. We are an AA/Veterans/Disabled Employer.

Cloudflare provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities.  Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job. Examples of reasonable accommodations include, but are not limited to, changing the application process, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.  If you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job, please contact us via e-mail at [email protected] or via mail at 101 Townsend St. San Francisco, CA 94107.

What you'll do

1Respond to customer security incidents in on-premises and cloud environments, detecting and disrupting cyber threat activity
2Conduct digital forensics and incident response investigations targeting APTs, organized crime, and hacktivist threats
3Engage with customer stakeholders at all levels (Executive, VP, Director, managerial) to communicate findings and remediation plans
4Correlate threat actor activity across customer environments, identifying TTPs aligned with MITRE ATT&CK
5Write incident response reports, triage malware via static/dynamic analysis, and develop scripts in Python or Golang
6Collaborate with forensic analysts, threat researchers, detection engineers, and malware analysts to detect and mitigate malicious activity

Requirements

3+ years of cybersecurity experience with 2+ years in hands-on incident response investigations
Proficiency in digital and network forensics across Windows, Linux, and macOS environments
Ability to triage and analyze malware using static and dynamic analysis techniques
Experience with cloud incident response methodologies across AWS, Azure, and/or GCP
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including executive-level reporting and client-facing deliverables

Nice to have

Golang
YARA rule writing
Static malware analysis
Dynamic malware analysis
Reverse engineering
APT malware analysis
IOC pivoting
Infrastructure enumeration
Bash scripting
Malware attribution
Hex/binary analysis
Regular expressions
Network flow analysis

Role overview

Role family
Security Engineering
Level
IC3 — security
Experience
2–5 years
Type
Individual Contributor
Remote policy
Fully Remote
Visa sponsorship
Not offered

Tech stack analysis

LANGUAGES
PythonGolangBash
FRAMEWORKS
YARA
INFRASTRUCTURE
AWSAzureGCPO365Cloudflare Network
TOOLS
Zeek/BroSuricataMITRE ATT&CK NavigatorStatic analysis toolsDynamic analysis/sandbox toolsNetwork forensics tools

Salary estimate

$130K – $175K
AI-estimated salary range
Confidence60%
Reasoning

Salary not disclosed. Cloudflare is a publicly traded, well-funded tech company (NYSE: NET) headquartered in San Francisco. For a mid-level security consultant role (IC2-IC3 equivalent) with 2–5 years experience in incident response/DFIR at a major cloud/security vendor, market rates in 2025–2026 typically range from $130K–$175K base in the US remote market. Title says 'Principal' but experience requirements suggest mid-level (2–3 years), so compensation likely sits in the mid-range of this band. Estimate excludes RSUs, bonus, or other equity which could add 20–40% on top.

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Green flags

5 items
Cloudflare has a strong public reputation for mission-driven work (Project Galileo, Athenian Project) which is explicitly called out, signaling authentic values alignment.culture

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Benefits breakdown

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Hiring insights

JD quality
Urgency
medium
Autonomy
high
Team size
small (2-5)

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Red flags

PRO5 items
Title says 'Principal Consultant' which implies senior-level, but the body text describes experience requirements of just 1–2 years (and listed requirements of 2–3 years) — a significant mismatch that may indicate inflated title expectations or a confusing leveling decision.requirements

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Interview insights

PRO

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Career path

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Next roles
Staff Security Researcher / Threat Intelligence LeadDetection Engineering ManagerDirector of Incident Response

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About the company

Cloudflare operates one of the world's largest edge networks, spanning 300+ cities in 100+ countries. It provides web security, CDN, DNS, and zero-trust services that protect and accelerate over 20% of all websites on the internet. Cloudflare processes over 57 million HTTP requests per second on average.

HQSan Francisco, CA, USA
Build vs Maintainboth
Cross-functionalYes